


in the mirror you're a work of art but this is real life, real life

by mayerwien



Series: you ain't ever gonna burn my heart out [1]
Category: Dunkirk (2017), Dunkirk (2017) RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Bedsharing, Celebrities, Cuddling & Snuggling, Filming, Friends to Lovers, M/M, On Set, Sharing a Bed, Touchy-Feely, causing trouble up in hotel rooms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 06:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11617884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien/pseuds/mayerwien
Summary: “One of my mates didn’t know how to swim for the longest time,” Harry says out of the blue.“Yeah?”“Yeah. We were staying in a hotel like this once, and we taught him how in the kids’ pool.” Smiling fondly at the memory, Harry tips his head back, closing his eyes and exposing his throat. “He kept sort of panicking, though, so I had to hold him up and repeatedly promise him he wasn’t about to drown in three feet of water.”“Sweet,” Fionn teases, and Harry sticks out his tongue with his eyes still closed.“Some people, you’ll walk to the ends of the earth for,” Harry tells him. He leans back further and lifts slightly off the floor of the pool, his arms spread out so they look like wings. “Even in clown shoes.”





	in the mirror you're a work of art but this is real life, real life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countthestars](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countthestars/gifts).



> (i'm so sorry, i've been stalking you on tumblr so i know you love the dunkircast and i THINK you like harry and fionn, so i wanted to make you something nice! sorry if this was totally unwarranted but no joke i am suchhh a huge fan of your writing, so this is me waiting outside the stage door for you and giving you a scrapbook or a cake or something ridiculous like that.)
> 
> Title from “Dazzle” by Oh Wonder, which actually has nothing to do with this fic or this ship; I just liked the line ahaha. The actual song I listened to while conceptualizing this was “Nervous” by Gavin James, which is wonderful in all its forms and remixes.

The beach at Dunkirk is immense. It stretches out before Fionn like a dare—the long swaths of sand; the sea a deep, hypnotic blue. On the first morning, when he stepped out and saw the thousands of extras all lined up in their uniforms and the warship off the coast, he thought he must have fallen through some kind of time door. Even now, after weeks of shooting, it still takes his breath away.

Even now, too, after weeks of shooting, part of Fionn still thinks someone is going to figure it out—that he’s not good enough, that it was all a huge mistake and they meant to call back some other bloke named Finn Whitehall. It’s not the fame he’s worried about losing; he loves acting and that’s all, and he can do that on any off-West End stage as well as here.

Still, it _would_ be a shame to lose this view.

Carefully, Fionn trips down to the water’s edge, where the foam has collected in great thick clouds. His boots sink quickly into the sand with a soft squelch, cementing him to the spot, and he takes deep gulps of the clean, salty air. If he allows himself to, he can feel the waves trying to suck him far out to sea, even though he’s only in it up to his ankles, and he could easily take two steps backwards to safety. It makes him feel miniscule—he can imagine the entire scene looking like a diorama, miles of blue cellophane with a tiny brown-and-green paper figure stuck on the edge of it.

“You all right, mate?”

A hand touches his arm just above his elbow, squeezes gently. Fionn turns and sees Harry squinting at him through the afternoon light, his brow crinkled in concern. Harry’s like this, always chatting to him between takes, asking him if he needs water or a lozenge, touching him or nudging him or whacking him on the shoulder sometimes for no reason other than _proximity._

“Yeah, it’s just…” Fionn makes a vague gesture, inadequate to capture everything he’s feeling. “’S incredible, isn’t it?”

The wind rakes through Harry’s curly hair, flipping it over his forehead. He told Fionn he’d had to cut it for this, that it used to come down to the base of his neck. “Yeah,” Harry says, following Fionn’s gaze out to where, in the distance, England is peeping through the fog. “It really is.”

“Sometimes it just hits me. That we’re…standing on the same sand they did.” Fionn shivers a little. “Puts your life into perspective.”

Harry nods, and Fionn knows he feels the same way. When they’re resting in their trailers or getting done up by the stylists, Harry steadily pores through books about the war and the evacuation. He’s a slower-than-average reader, but he has an excellent memory for the things he does read; often he brings up facts he’s learned in conversation, about the smallest recorded boat that joined the Little Ships operation, or the thousands of tons of supplies the army had to leave behind in France. Chris Nolan is very impressed. ( _Show-off,_ Fionn whispers in his ear each time, while Harry just grins.)

“Hey, I think we’re going to start again.” Harry thumbs towards where the camera is set up. Nodding, Fionn unsquelches his boots from the sand and takes off running, Harry close on his heels. The two of them race along the shoreline, pausing to scoop up water and sprinkle each other to wet their faces for the next shot, the part where they’re washed up and lying on their backs in the surf.

The dialogue in this film is sparse, calculated—not a word ever wasted. Sometimes Fionn thinks he would have _preferred_ loads of lines to memorize. With wordless acting, he realized quickly it’s a waste of time to try to arrange your face into the kind of expression you think will look right on camera. The trick is to just let yourself feel things, to be. At first Fionn thought he looked like a talentless lump, doing it, but somehow everything he’s been imagining—desperation, fear, resilience—is coming through.

 _See,_ Chris murmured to him when they were watching the dailies once, pointing at the screen—tracing with his finger the crease between Fionn’s eyebrows, the slight, defiant jut of his jaw he didn’t even know he’d done. _Exactly like that._

 

* * *

 

After particularly rough days, Fionn and a few of the other cast members like to go and grab dinner and drinks together. Tonight is no exception—there’s a small restaurant-café they favor, where the light is warm and the music spills out onto the street, and the six of them can squash up against one another at a table meant for four.

“This foie gras,” Fionn pronounces, feeling lofty after one glass of wine, “is _perfectly_ seared.”

“Listen to the bairn,” Lowden says, clearly amused as he swirls his own glass of merlot. Reaching out with his other hand, he pats Fionn condescendingly on the head.

Beside Fionn, Barry snort-laughs in that quiet way he has. “Thinks he’s Gordon Ramsay. Quick, Fionny, here’s a slice of bread. Put it to my ear and ask me what I am.”

“Shove off, Baz.” Fionn is the youngest among them, and knows therefore he’s predisposed to be the target for the most ribbing and teasing; really, though, he doesn’t mind it, and he can serve it right back to them if he has to. It reminds him of hanging out with his mates back home. “Bet I can whip eggs better than you, and whip your arse besides.”

“Dance-off, dance-off,” chants Tom Glynn-Carney, who has been trying to get Fionn to do a dance-off with somebody since day one.

A waitress click-clacks up to their table to refill their water glasses. “Could I get mine warm, please?” Aneurin asks, lifting a slender finger. “Best for the throat.”

“Right, got to rest your vocal cords. All the talking you do in this film must be _exhausting,_ god,” says Tom, resting his elbow on the table and propping his chin up on his knuckles. Beneath his coif of fair hair, his darker roots are starting to show again; Fionn suspects Cheryl will be hustling him off to the salon chair very soon. “How _do_ you do it?”

“You know, instead of _Je suis francais,_ one day you should try saying _I am Groot,”_ Harry suggests mischievously, and the group erupts in guffaws. Harry’s sitting across from Fionn, their legs comfortably flush against each other’s under the table, Harry’s foot half-hooked around Fionn’s ankle.

 _“Christopher, I am your father,”_ Aneurin intones, wiggling his eyebrows.

Chuckling, Lowden leans back in his chair. “Yeah, I can see the headlines now. Actor Aneurin Barnard, kicked off the set of _Dunkirk_ a week before wrap.” Aneurin makes a face and pretends to throw a baguette at him.

“Hey, when this week _is_ over, we should do something together,” Harry says suddenly, balling his napkin in his hands. His rings make clinking noises against each other; today he’s wearing a giant stone made of red glass, some thin wiggly silver bands, and one that’s shaped like a wolf’s head.

“Don’t be daft, we’re still going to see each other, there’s still what-d’you-call-ems. Reshoots and pickups and all that,” Baz points out.

“To say nothing of the press junket.” Lowden mimes throttling himself. “But we’ll find a way to squeeze a party or two in there, Styles, don’t you worry.”

“Right—I forgot.” Harry’s beaming now, his blue eyes meeting Fionn’s. In response, Fionn cups his hand around his mouth, aims it at Harry, and blows a puff of air through his fist.

“Damn!” Harry’s head drops to the table with a thud, and everyone roars with laughter. It’s a stupid game that no one can remember who started on set, but they take it dead seriously; the rules are if you make eye contact with someone they get to shoot a poison dart at you, and you can’t move until you’ve received the cure. “Tommy, if you please,” Harry says, voice muffled due to his face-plant into the tablecloth.

“Champagne, anyone?” Tom asks innocently.

“Ooh, that sounds nice,” Aneurin replies, winking.

 _“Tommmm,_ come _onnnnn,”_ Harry moans louder.

“Can you ask if they have any of those pink ones?” Barry asks. “I like those.”

Tom raises his hand. “Waiter?”

_“Thomaaaaaaas.”_

“Oh, all right, you great baby,” Fionn says, reaching over the table and touching Harry’s ear with his index finger.

“Whew.” Harry lifts his head, grinning. “My hero.” Under the table, his knee presses against Fionn’s, and for some reason Fionn feels his throat go tight all of a sudden. He downs his second glass of wine, so that five minutes later when his face gets warm and pink he has a good explanation for it.

Fionn wonders, later, if the reason why Harry said the thing about spending time together was because he gets lonely. Probably not. He hopes not. Harry’s too good a person to ever deserve to feel lonely.

 

* * *

 

And then it’s all over, and the film is coming out and they’re launched right into the press tour, just like Jack said. The word _whirlwind,_ cliched as it is in these situations, isn’t too far off, Fionn thinks—they’re spirited at warp speed from one major city to the next, where they don’t see much more than the insides of tinted car windows and the bright, smiley faces of interviewers, all of whom always look much more fresh and put-together than Fionn ever feels.

(It helps, that he’s been paired with Harry for the junket. Though it’s seriously doing his head in, being asked what his aspirations for the future are one minute and how he takes his coffee the next—Harry’s always there to steer the conversation in a direction that makes sense again, to crack a joke that’s easy for Fionn to bounce off or roll his eyes at. It’s like they have a system that they didn’t even need to work out beforehand. Like they’re just in sync.)

“What’s making me worry is, I don’t know if I’m—conveying it all, the scope of it,” Fionn murmurs to Harry, on the plane to New York. “Like, they’ve told this huge important story, that people will be talking about for _years_ probably, and all I keep saying is ‘it was an incredible experience.’”

Harry pulls his other earbud out, turning in his seat to face Fionn, and considers solemnly. On his screen, little Simba is running away from his fate as king, into the desert where the vultures circle overhead. “Well, there’s only so much you _can_ say in interviews like this,” Harry says. “What with the questions they ask and the time they have. It’s not your fault or anything, everyone knows that’s just how it is.”

Somehow, Fionn’s forgotten that Harry is accustomed to going to Interviews Like This. He never really talked about his other career on set—not because it made him uncomfortable, but because it simply wasn’t relevant. On set they were all soldiers, and that was that. As a result, he’s never been Harry-Styles-the-pop-star to Fionn. He’s always been the boy who sat beside him that fateful day in a cold, bare conference room, reading out lines for characters they hadn’t even known the names of yet. Just Harry, his friend.

In the same way, Fionn never actively sought out any of Harry’s music to listen to (though in secondary school he heard the _baby you light up my world_ song on the radio so many times, it’s become permanently etched in the back of his brain somewhere, like he supposes it has for the rest of his generation). He doesn’t plan on listening to it anytime soon. It would feel like…watching porn, somehow, like something he wouldn’t dare risk anyone walking in and catching him at. So Fionn tries not to wonder, how that soft, gravelly voice might fill lines of song and make them fly.

Once they get off the plane they stumble through customs, zombielike, and their car picks them up to take them to their hotel for the noon check-in; the others are still getting in later that evening or early tomorrow morning. Each of them has their own hotel room, but Fionn’s barely five minutes into unpacking his clothes when Harry knocks on his door and asks if he wants to check out the pool.

The roof deck is almost empty, with just one elderly man doing short crosswise laps on the far end. They shuck their clothes back to back and get into the pool, Fionn clambering down the ladder, Harry sitting down and sliding off the edge into the water. After they’ve ducked their heads and done the obligatory splashing each other that lads do, they sit in the corner, blinking the water out of their eyes and watching the clouds drift by overhead.

“One of my mates didn’t know how to swim for the longest time,” Harry says out of the blue.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We were staying in a hotel like this once, and we taught him how in the kids’ pool.” Smiling fondly at the memory, Harry tips his head back, closing his eyes and exposing his throat. “He kept sort of panicking, though, so I had to hold him up and repeatedly promise him he wasn’t about to drown in three feet of water.”

“Sweet,” Fionn teases, and Harry sticks out his tongue with his eyes still closed.

“Some people, you’ll walk to the ends of the earth for,” Harry tells him. He leans back further and lifts slightly off the floor of the pool, his arms spread out so they look like wings. “Even in clown shoes.”

Fionn hums. “Solid 8 for the sentiment, 4.5 for the metaphor.”

Harry stretches out his arm and whacks the water, sending a spray in Fionn’s direction which he manages to gracefully duck. Watching him lazily drift there, Fionn remembers all the hours they spent standing in the ocean at Dunkirk, and what seemed like even longer hours bobbing in the tank under overcast studio lights—ten pounds of wet uniform and gear clinging to his bones as he reached out to grab Harry’s hand, take after take, trying to feel like he was saving someone’s life instead of stealing a kind of touch he didn’t deserve.

Letting go of the wall, Fionn takes a breath and slips below the chlorine-blue surface, releasing his breath in a trail of bubbles that climbs toward the light. Yeah. This is nicer.

 

* * *

 

 

They all see the movie together before the official release, of course—at a special early screening set up for cast and crew and the most important critics. Fionn’s wearing a new suit he’s not sure he likes, but that Cheryl assured him earlier makes him look “delectable,” a compliment he’s equally unsure about. Everyone’s buzzing with nerves and excitement as they file in and take their seats; then the lights go down and a reverent hush falls over the room, and it’s time. The moment of truth.

Fionn doesn’t know much about cinematography, but right from the first five minutes, he knows Hoyte’s work is stunning—there’s no excessive shaky cam, no framing that obviously draws attention to itself. Just that subtle, measured light that draws you completely into the scene. Watching himself flying across the cobblestones, his heart beating in time with the ticking of the clock that’s booming in his ears, he’s transported not back to the day they shot that sequence, but to the year 1940—and from then on he doesn’t think he breathes at all until the end, when Farrier’s plane is coasting to a stop over the glimmering sea, and the rescued soldiers are boarding the train.

Appreciating people aesthetically has never come easy to Fionn—when he was younger he thought it meant something was wrong with him, that he was never able to look at a person’s face and definitively say they were pretty or handsome or fanciable. It’s ironic that it takes sitting in a darkened hall among a hundred-odd other people and looking up at a giant screen for Fionn to realize, for the first time, that he _would_ definitively say all those things about Harry. In the scene he’s asleep, head against the window, faint smudges of dirt on his cheeks. Fionn’s never noticed the fringes of Harry’s eyelashes before, but he notices them now—and the way the sunlight is dappling his face and hair, touching gold to his cheekbones, the tip of his nose, the bow of his upper lip. The image slightly blurred from the film grain, everything dreamlike and soft.

Shaking himself and taking a sharp breath of the chilly, artificial air, Fionn glances over at the Harry that’s sitting next to him. He’s totally immersed in the movie, completely oblivious to Fionn or anybody else. His eyes are glinting, too, as though they’ve just been wet.

Tentatively, Fionn rests his hand on Harry’s arm. “You okay?” he whispers.

Harry blinks, startled. “Yeah, yeah,” he says thickly, smiling and swiping at his eyes with the back of his other hand. “Just, it’s this weather, you know, sometimes I get allerg—“

Onscreen, Fionn-as-Tommy begins to read aloud from the newspaper. _“We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans…”_

“Oh, bloody hell,” says Harry, and sniffles.

Fionn freezes. _Shit,_ he thinks. Part of him instantly has the very strong impulse to get out of his seat, run up the aisle until he finds where Chris Nolan is sitting, and hiss _I THINK HARRY IS CRYING, WHAT SHOULD I DO_ into his ear. But then Harry rolls his eyes good-naturedly and murmurs, “Trust me to start weeping while we’re at _work,”_ and shoots Fionn a wink he just manages to catch in the low light. “This is your fault, you know.”

“Ass,” Fionn whispers, curling his fingers a little more into Harry’s sleeve.

They sit in silence for the last few minutes of it, Fionn still holding onto Harry’s arm through two layers of fabric—aware he’s been doing it for way too long, but feeling like if he lets go now he’ll draw more attention to the fact that he did it in the first place. So he just watches as the final shot cuts to black and the credits fade in, the projector steadily whirring away above their heads.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, Fionn finds he can’t get to sleep. He putters around in the kitchenette a bit, trying to figure out whether he feels like tea or the one Ribena that’s mysteriously in the fridge—then flicks through the TV channels halfheartedly before settling on just lying in bed with his iPod on low volume.

At first he thinks he’s imagining the shadow coming through the gap below the door, but then he hears the knock. “Heya. You decent?” a familiar voice on the other side whispers.

“I’m never decent.” Fionn laughs and unbolts the door. “What’re you on? It’s one AM.”

Harry races past Fionn on bare feet and, with a flying leap, launches himself onto the bed. He rolls over until he’s occupying the side Fionn was just on, curling into the warm imprint he left on the mattress. “It’s cold in my room,” Harry says plaintively.

“So turn down the air conditioning?” Fionn grudgingly gets into the other side of the bed, and Harry flings his arm over Fionn’s midsection happily, throwing one leg over him for good measure. The sheets are cool and crisp, and Harry is annoyingly warm. “God, you’re such a…a _cuddle fiend,”_ Fionn grumbles, adjusting his head so Harry has space on the pillow.

“You’re surprised?” Harry pulls the duvet up to their chins, grinning. “What’re you listening to?”

Fionn takes out one earbud and hands it to Harry, who puts it in and instantly makes a small appreciative noise. “Is this the album with ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger’ on it?”

“Yeah.” Fionn scrolls to it and turns the volume up a little, then lowers his iPod so he can see Harry’s face. Harry smiles sleepily back; he’s wearing a downy gray hoodie, his hair even more rumpled-looking than it is during the day.

“You were awake,” he says, cocking his head.

Fionn sighs. “I’ve told you before, Harry, _I_ am an adult. That means I can go to bed whenever I want. _You,_ on the other hand, are a growing boy, who is being very naughty staying up this late.”

Harry inclines his head towards Fionn’s ever so slightly, still smiling. “So persnickety.”

 _“’Persnickety’?_ I’ve changed my mind—you’re not a little boy, you’re my blooming granddad.”

“Ouch.” Harry winces. “Don’t think I want to be your granddad, Fionnley.”

“Well, what do you want to be, then?” Fionn retorts.

Harry looks at him across the pillow for a moment, not answering. He’s not smiling anymore either, but he seems to be searching Fionn’s expression. Something thuds madly against Fionn’s ribcage, and he realizes with a distant, growing panic that it’s his own heartbeat. Then Harry looks him straight in the eyes, and on his face is something Fionn’s never seen before—some strange mixture of determination and uncertainty. Tenderness, even.

 _Take that look from off your face,_ Liam Gallagher is singing into his ear, _you ain’t ever gonna burn my heart out._

Fionn holds his breath. Eyes shining, Harry inches closer, and—

And puts his fist to his mouth and blows. “Got you,” Harry says.

“You—“ Fionn starts to shout and then lowers his voice, feeling his cheeks burn. “You _wanker.”_

Harry snickers, propping himself up on one elbow. “The others are going to love this. Wait, I need to take a photo for the Whatsapp. Where’s your phone?”

“Let me _up,_ Styles, you absolute prick,” Fionn says through his teeth; his entire face is on fire now, he’s certain of it.

“I will,” Harry says simply. “But not before…“ He stops, bites his lip, lifts his hand and slowly, lets his fingertips trail down Fionn’s shoulder. Lifts it higher and does the same to Fionn’s cheek, drawing gentle lines down to his jaw, fingers cool and light on his heated skin.

Oh.

“Did I get it right?” Harry whispers, looking anxious. “If not, you can tell me, I mean I—this isn’t just…”

Fionn swallows. Even if he weren’t bound by the rules of this ridiculous game, he doesn’t think he’d be able to move. “What I’m trying to say is…I like you,” Harry continues softly.

“Oh.” Fionn considers this. “That’s…interesting,” he says finally.

Harry’s brow wrinkles, and he pulls his hand back. “Interesting?”

“Well, because, I _mean.”_ Fionn huffs. “Just. Me too. Obviously.”

Harry looks taken aback—and then he laughs, loud and delighted and real, his nose crinkling up as he throws his head back onto the pillow. _“Obviously,”_ he repeats, shaking his head. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

“Me? _You’re_ the impossible one!”

“Well, we’re some pair, that’s for sure.” Harry turns his head to face him, a familiar mischievous glint in his eyes. “What do you say? Think we’ll be able to put up with each other long enough for the tabloids to start speculating?”

“Why don’t you let me up, and you’ll find out,” Fionn says, feeling wicked.

Harry laughs again, and Fionn thinks he’s never been infuriated by _(or liked)_ a sound more. “Oh, this is going to be _fun,”_ he says, grinning like mad, and reaches across the duvet to tap Fionn’s ear with his finger.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi [here](http://mayerwien.tumblr.com) or [here](http://twitter.com/anhgryboys)! Send me writing prompts/suggestions, yell at me about boys, what have you.
> 
> Also, the Little Ships ficwriting fest for Dunkirk fic and RPF is ongoing [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Dunkirk_Little_Ships_Fest/profile)! Signups are currently open and will close on August 26, so come on down and join us!
> 
> I was watching Dunkirk press junket videos for research, and I think one of the things that caught my fancy the most was sweet baby Fionn wearing grouchiness and old-man exasperation like armor, especially when faced with Harry’s insufferable sweetness and silliness. It’s the kind of relationship I'm incredibly fond of. I have way too many of them in my real life.
> 
> The Poison Dart Game thing is from [this interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyyTuL5tfL8); I was actually almost done with the fic when I heard about it, but I thought it was too great to pass up, so I found a way to work it in...successfully, I think? 
> 
> Also man, this fic made me realize how much I missed writing conversations with several boys in them. (You know the ones I mean.)


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